Maybe Crom, trickster that he is, will bless me with some honors--after the fact for how we have been so far ahead of the curve here on WARN--but for now I can hope that the email comes or the phone rings in the near future. It is all the more frustrating because I have both direct and indirect access to some of the players involved. Alas, we all make choices and must live with them.

Beyond my self-indulgent credit claiming, there was one moment in this conversation about Romney's naked racism where I did wish that I was present on the panel.

Steve Schmidt, the token Republican representative on Maddow's panel, played the false equivalence game when the infamous Jesse Helms' "Black Hands White Hands" ad from1990 was compared to Romney-Ryan's anti-Obama screeds of 2012. He argued that "both sides do it," i.e. using racism to mobilize voters. Ahistorical. Inaccurate. And a claim that can be empirically demolished with ease.

If I were part of the conversation, I would have channeled Norman Schwarzkopf and his famous "bovine scatology" quip.

Melissa was gonna shut him down, but the other panelists played nice. I would have brought the pain and simply asked how the Democrats can use anti-black racism to mobilize their base, when black and brown folks are integral to said party. Alternatively, I could have simply asked him about birthers, Tea Party bigotry, or who the Republicans want to "take their country back" from?

Hell, what about the fact that the Tea Party GOP admitted that they created the Southern Strategy, and were/are professional race-baiters and political meth addicts who cook up white racial anxiety to win over insecure white voters?

20 comments:

Anonymous
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Vic78

I wish they would bring up Lee Atwater's statement about the southern strategy's evolution. That would put certain people on the defensive and the media would have to take their jobs a little more seriously. Why is Roger Ailes running that news channel? What's with the Reagan worship? They could make a series of documentaries. It would be the highest ranking show on cable news. It won't happen. Biting the hand that feeds you isn't something people do in the 21st century. MSNBC answers to the same kind of management the others answer to.

You notice that certain people(Obama) choose not to talk to the cable news people? I don't think it's an accident. I notice certain academics don't get a chance to talk at all. I'm surprised Dr. Harris-Perry was able to get her own show. Seeing she has dumb ass wing nuts on her show demonstrates her show's limitations. I don't blame her for holding back. I would hold back for power. It's easier to get things done with a bigger platform. I'd accept the headaches that come with that compromise.

For years in Detroit I often observed my narratives and talking points being usurped by pundits and talking heads on local news shows at first I was pissed but then I became a brand that people respected...WARN is that now!!

Chickens coming home to roosts. Obama has criticized poor Black people in front of national audiences ala Bill Cosby to gain acceptance and support from the Joe the Plumbers and Soccer Mom types, how ironic that after wasting all that time, he has failed to get that support. Too bad he didn't spend that time building a progressive base. So many missed opportunities including the chance to change this country.

@invisible. i have to ask. what did bill cosby say that was not true? what did he say that any person riding a public bus in any major city in this country when school lets out does not know already? the cos is the truth.

Chaunceydevega, you are indeed the Papa Legba of the Black Political landscape ;-)

My beef isn't about truth. Believe, I got a bus card too. And sometimes I get off and walk after the bus gets overrun by a horde of Bey Bey kids. My concern is about context and company. I don't prescribe to the Black thought, of not airing our dirty laundry in public. Because, we must do so at times to force the Black community to take notice, sadly. But to air such laundry our of anger( i.e. Bill Cosby with such a strong voice) with out giving proper context only justifies and fans the flames of continued white racism in a society founded on it. In short, Bill Cosby's powerful voice just builds yet another barrier preventing escape. I found Eric Dyson's book "Is Bill Cosby Right"( Or Has The Black Middle Class Losts It's Mind ) enlightening as Bill Cosby is wiling to talk about what Nay Nay and Jamal is and aint doing, but never talk about how Corporations( that he has made such a career advertising for) are harming those same communities. And for Obama to do this as well for white votes,( that he aint even gonna get), in the immortal words of Grady Wilson "Good goobily goop!

@Thrasher. Dyson is a smart hustler who knows his audience. He doesn't want to live next to the ign't classes either.

You can be stuck in material poverty; that does not mean you have to be impoverished intellectually, morally, or in your behavior. The low expectations that many have for folks who happen to be poor is a complement to the structural white supremacy we are still dealing with in this day and age. "The White man" is not responsible for pants sagging ign't culture, out of wedlock births, black on black robbery and thievery, black on black murder, hooligan flash mobs, and how so many have internalized a worldview that is one step away from the state of nature. You can make excuses for that behavior Thrasher and live in the muck and mire, I choose to have higher standards for our people.

@IM. Redd Foxx didn't have much use for the ign't classes either. What is wrong for stating a plain on the face fact, one that by ignoring, you lose all credibility? Truth is truth; it should not be held hostage to the white gaze. As I mentioned some moons ago, there was a reason that during Jim and Jane Crow and the lynching tree that we protected even the worst among us; in the 21st century and the era of the Black Superpublic such notions are antiquated. These ign'ts put their foolishness on display all over the Internet--with pride--for the world to mock them for...and these same sad ghetto underclass ign'ts don't realize that they are the butt of the joke.

Bullshit CD and spare me your righteous posturing on poor folks it is easy being noble from a distant

You and I have been down this road before I do not make excuses for trifling people not have I ever excused away ignorance or any degree of decadence.

Your ease at labeling inequating moral decay with Black people is troubling and reveals to me how you have been stained and tainted by white supremacy .

I am going to stop now before I regret my words I do recall how you loss your center with my students but right now it is not worth going there again . I will govern myself accordingly since I am in your house.,

Also, you disavowed their behavior. So now you claim them? As I said, you need to do a much better job with their home training then. What they offered up has no currency beyond a 3 block radius of fellow pant saggers and baby mama drama 35 year old grandma 3 times in jail subculture. Uplift your people, don't weight them down by enabling their crap, i.e. "coping mechanisms."

We are friends. You can be direct. Please, tell me. Is there anything that I wrote about the ign'ts that is inaccurate. Please enlighten me.

Am I so wrong to expect the best of us? To not conflate ghetto underclass degeneracy with "blackness?" You can choose to live among such mess, others can choose to get the hell away from it. The latter are no less "black" because they value their safety, security, and want to be in a livable community.

I have traveledthis road before with you so did my students who as I previously noted I respect their freedoms to have opinions of thier own. No I will not kick them to the curb as I stated to you previously..

I don't engage in home training of any kind I never did that with my own kids more importantly I reject your assumpions and self serving narrative and verbaige..

You are inserting your narratives and answering your scripted questions with your scripted answers. I reject your paradigm now and before. You do this quite often inserting your scripted comments into other's views sorry but I don't bite.

You spin on terms like 'uplift' 'enabling" etc are your inferences not mine..I am not compelled to purchase your analysis on anything certainly not this narrative where as I noted months ago you are wrong in demonizing our youth with your tired rightousness that is full of fiction ( please refer to our previous comments on this matter where your fiction about black criminals was just that full of fiction)

With regard to the issue at hand Cosby is full of shit his applause seeking white skit simply has no merit. It is based upon his myopic protrayal of Black youth in part to validate his hollow persona with Black youth..Dyson and many others including me have already disposed of Cosby's bullshit..

You are not the only one who seeks the best of our youth and community...No one in my tribe as affirmed ignorance... It is you and clowns like Cosby and Cnu who seek to blanket and indict our youth with pathological labels based upon the wounded shotcomings of a few!... There has never been any denial on my part about the criminal and immoral beahvior of some youth in our venues but unlike you I don't posture on these few slugs to indict an entire bandwidth of Black youth nor do I unlike you offer up self serving rightous platitudes as well.

No I will never affirm your selective and inflated posturing on the souls and backs of our Black youth . I offer no apology nor retreat from my support for them.

I will continue to object, reject and negate people like you who insert a false narrative about our youth based upon your misread and incongruent analysis of 'the ghetto underclass'

As I noted earlier you are not the arbiter of anything no more than I am ..I will of course continue to respect you and govern myself accordingly in WARN.

@Thrasher. "With regard to the issue at hand Cosby is full of shit..." Please, give me some specifics about what he said that were not true? I am asking honestly.

Dyson, did not dispose of anything that Cosby said. Dyson wrote a book to get a quick check from those who excuse make for ghetto underclass pathologies and degenerate behavior. Dyson does not want to live near those folks anymore than other reasonable people.

You can't claim your students and then deny their crappy behavior. It does not work that way. You also said something very interesting and which I hope does not confirm something I have long suspected.

"( please refer to our previous comments on this matter where your fiction about black criminals was just that full of fiction)"

"Our" previous comments on this matter. If you mean the black flashmob discussion(s) where your "students" acted like feces flinging man-apes and humanzees, then there is a problem. You never posted a comment in those threads. Your "students" did. Interestingly, mighty curious in fact, your students have very similar affects and habits in their writing. In particular the conspicuous "lol, lol" that you love to close with. Their style of writing is almost identical to your own.

The ip's are also the same--although you say they are just sweaty basement dwellers who you "mentor" but apparently do not "teach" very well.

Were you running a joke Thrasher? Pretending to be all of those people? Was that some type of performance art gone wrong? Boredom. I hope not, because it wasted my time, the readers' time, and would be a horrible look if true.

Others have not given you the benefit of the doubt. I always try to defend you because you seem well-intentioned. Please explain.

You have no idea what Dyson thinks or is views about living next to the ghetto poor more idle fiction and speculation from you yet again

With regard to your detective and writing analysis on my posts and my students I willpretend you are smoking something ...,

I am not like you I do not write or post anything an alias or mask ... I have many people ghost writing and using my ethos and style of penmanship it is sm aspect of notoriety ...

I am troubled that you have gone down this path but I understand the agenda of denial and deflection . I don't need a guardian nor a defender of course I have excuse away your posts many times in private emails toposters on WARN as well .

My position remains unchanged on this issue create whatever games you want BTW I bet your ip 's check cannot see my laughing face right now....

@Thrasher. "You have no idea what Dyson thinks or is views about living next to the ghetto poor more idle fiction and speculation from you yet again"

You would be surprised what I know.

"I have many people ghost writing and using my ethos and style of penmanship it is an aspect of notoriety."

Now, I have to ask what you are smoking. Many people trying to write like you? Please. Where can I get some of that crack rock brother?

Unless you came up with your own version of The Elements of Style and are using it in a literacy class and/or selling a photocopied version of it at hair salons and barbershops, I doubt anyone is shark biting you as we used to say back in the day.

We will let other folks arbitrate this. I think you were playing some game of failed online puppetry.

"I have excuse away your posts many times in private emails toposters on WARN as well."

I hope you are kidding. You need to do something more constructive with your time if you are spending it on such mess. Again, I hope you are kidding.

"With regard to your detective and writing analysis on my posts and my students I willpretend you are smoking something."

It would take about five minutes to copy some of your comments and paste them next to that of the sweaty basement dwellers. Any fair minded person reading them side by side would likely agree they were written by the same person.

Unlike you I attached my real name to anything I write or post in any venue and I have done so for over 25 years you can set up any kangaroo exercise you want go head feed your fractured ego ...

I do know this you are not from Detroit and your post about knowing Dyson is more fiction yet again of more significance is just like Cosby on this topic you have smeared and stereotyped an entire bandwidth of Black youth with your own self righteous applause seeking noble sage act .

I do know this I doubt if I will be making any more excuses on your behalf with some of the WARN posters ( you would be surprise who emails me about you... Lol lol )

"I have done so for over 25 years you can set up any kangaroo exercise you want go head feed your fractured ego ..."

Fractured ego. Stop playing. I am trying to be generous and kind to you. It isn't a kangaroo exercise. It would be a basic one that would reveal that you are likely all of the members of your "study group."

Please answer, if you could, who on god's green earth is trying to write like you? is there a seminar i/we can take?

"I do know this I doubt if I will be making any more excuses on your behalf with some of the WARN posters ( you would be surprise who emails me about you... Lol lol )"

I don't care. You understand that. right? Again, that sounds oddly like some of the mess your basement dwellers were spouting.

"and your post about knowing Dyson is more fiction "

It is a small world Thrasher. You would be surprised. Given that you have been in the game 25 years and are a "living legend" in the "D" I would think that your rolodex would be pretty deep. No?

Do you think Dyson is chilling out in the worst parts of DC with "the people?" He ain't living in the 'hood with your folks, trust me. Nor should he be expected to be playing such silly authenticity games.

Tips and Support Are Always Welcome

Who is Chauncey DeVega?

I have been a guest on the BBC, National Public Radio, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Sirius XM's Make it Plain, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Thom Hartmann radio show, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground.

I have also been interviewed on the RT Network and Free Speech TV.

I am a contributing writer for Salon and Alternet.

My writing has also been featured by Newsweek, The New York Daily News, The Huffington Post, and the Daily Kos.

My work has also been referenced by MSNBC, the Associated Press, Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Spectator, Media Matters, The Gothamist, Fader, XOJane, The National Memo, The Root, Detroit Free Press, San Diego Free Press, the Global Post, as well as online magazines and publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, The Week, The New Republic, Buzzfeed, Counterpunch, Truth-Out, Pacific Standard, Common Dreams, The Daily Beast, The Washington Times, The Nation, RogerEbert.com, Ebony, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Fox News, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Juan Williams, Herman Cain, Alex Jones, World Net Daily, Twitchy, the Free Republic, the National Review, NewsBusters, the Media Research Council, Project 21, and Weasel Zippers have made it known that they do not like me very much.